On Thursday 7th November 2024 we had the third of our Special Interest Days for 2024, excellently organised by our Committee Member, Diana Jones. There was maximum attendance, and with every justification. It was, in fact, one of the highlights of our year. Under the expert tutelage of our lecturer, Douglas Skeggs, well known to many TASH members, (pictured left with Diana), we were privileged to have the most fascinating, rewarding and eye-opening day travelling through European history through the eyes of the Medici family. So many attendees said they would love to hear it all over again that Diana most generously wrote this superb report:

A full house!

Probably most people had some knowledge of this redoubtable family, described by our speaker, Douglas Skeggs, as unattractive in many ways. His premise, however, was that without them we wouldn’t have many of the works of art from the Renaissance that we prize so highly today.

Cosimo de Medici (1389 -1464) was the richest man in the world, and though the family’s origin may have been as apothecaries (medicine/Medici)  it was as money lenders/usurers that they made their fortune. Since usury was a sin, the family sought indulgences from the Pope by becoming leading patrons of the arts in Florence.

Florence was a wool city, the wool coming from England, and the Medici, with branches of their bank in every city of the known world, acted as bankers for the trade ( merchant bankers). The florin was the currency for the rich and only florins could be used to buy property. The rest of society was paid in scudi and only the Medici could exchange one for the other, so the family acquired immense power and wealth. 

But from this wealth came Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Fra Angelico's frescoes, Donatello’s David and the Michelangelo sculptures in the Medici chapel, pictured below.

                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi, above, (1475 and now in the Uffizi) reflects the power of the Medici, depicting almost every member of the family in detailed portraits within the painting. The family were effectively rulers of Florence so it was unsurprising that Lorenzo, Cosimo’s grandson, was the victim of an (unsuccessful) assassination attempt in the Pazzi conspiracy, the Pazzi being a rival banking family.

In the second lecture we heard that though the Medici were exiled from Florence when it was gripped by the apocalyptic preaching of Savonarola, Lorenzo’s family would reappear triumphantly in Rome, as Popes.

Julius II (the Warrior Pope) , Leo X and Clement VII were all Medicis.

But before his exile, Lorenzo had created a sculpture garden in Florence, where Michelangelo was tutored, before he too had to escape, to Bologna. His sculptures were revolutionary, for the first time having movement so that you had to walk all round them to appreciate them fully,

leading eventually to the almost mannerist style of his masterpiece - Pieta (1498).

 In the third lecture, we heard of the rise of the Medici to become Royalty in France, after becoming a spent force in Italy at the beginning of of the 16th century. Their decadent rule had opened the door to Lutheranism and led to the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor. War and plague together dramatically reduced the population and importance of Rome.

But ingenious plotting by Clement VII saw Catherine de Medici (1519 -89), a direct descendant of Lorenzo, become Queen of France through her marriage to Henry II. She was described to us as the Supreme Survivor, pitted against her rival, Diane de Poitiers, who was Henry’s favourite mistress. To Catherine’s chagrin, Diane was the recipient of many gifts of works of art from Henry, including the Chateau de Chenonceaux. Nevertheless Catherine ultimately bore Henry 10 children, of whom three went on to become Kings of France, one marrying Mary Queen of Scots. Fontainebleau was her favourite palace and after Henry’s death in a jousting accident she acquired many of the gifts he had given Diane de Poitiers.                                 

The lecture concluded with Marie de Medici (1575 -1642), related to Catherine  through the marriage of Marie’s uncle. She too married a king of France, Henry IV, and served as Regent for seven years after his death in 1610.

The family’s penultimate leader was Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, but by 1737 the era of the Medici ended, when his son died without issue and the Hapsburgs took over.

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Douglas Skeggs is an extremely accomplished lecturer with a very engaging way of presenting his many illustrations. He has given some 7000 lectures since 1980, having read Fine Art at Magdalen College, Cambridge. He has lectured all over the world with venues as disparate as the bar of the QE2, MI5 headquarters and a NATO base aircraft hanger.  He has written a book on Monet as well as several thrillers set in the art world. He has written and presented TV documentaries including a BBC Omnibus on Whistler.

We look forward to inviting him back to The Arts Society Henley in 2026.

Diana Jones

The Medici Family from 1360 to 1743